Proof that Leather Never Goes out of Style

It’s a far cry from a Jimmy Choo, but the ancient shoe recently found in the hills of Armenia looks remarkably similar to what people are wearing today. Estimated to be roughly 5,500 years old, this unique piece of footwear is made out of one piece of tanned cow leather with laces up the front, very much like one of Nike’s modern day basketball shoes, just a lot less colorful.

According to news reports:

The Armenian shoe was small by current standards – European size 37 or U.S. women’s size 7 – but might have fit a man of that era, according to [archaeologist Ron] Pinhasi. He described the shoe as a single piece of leather cut to fit the foot. The back of the shoe was closed by a lace passing through four sets of eyelets. In the front, 15 pairs of eyelets were used to lace from toe to top.

Pinhasi went on to say that “the shoe is similar to a type of footwear common in the Aran Islands, west of Ireland, up until the 1950s. The Irish version, known as ‘pampooties’ reportedly didn’t last long. In fact, enormous similarities exist between the manufacturing technique and style of this [Armenian] shoe and those found across Europe at later periods, suggesting that this type of shoe was worn for thousands of years across a large and environmentally diverse region.”